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SEP 25 1900 



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SECOND copy. 

OROfc^O' VISION 

OCT 13 I90U 




THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CAMBRI DGE . USA- 





Dr^vm^Iis 



PIPPA 

OTTIMA 

SEBALD 

Foreign Students 
GOTTLIEB 
SCHRAMM 
JULES 
PHENE 
Austrian Police 
BLUPHOCKS 
LUIGI and his MOTHER 
Poor Girls 

MONSIGNOR and his 
Attendants 






U49» 









At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot, 
In readiness to take what thou wilt give, 
And free to let alone what thou refusest ; 
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest 
Me, who am only Pippa, — old-year's 

sorrow. 
Cast off last night, will come again to- 
morrow : 
Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall 

borrow 
Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's 

sorrow. 
All other men and women that this earth 
Belongs to, who all days alike possess, 
Make general plenty cure particular 

dearth, 
Get more joy one way, if another, less : 
Thou art my single day, God lends to 

leaven 
What were all earth else, with a feel of 

heaven, — 
Sole light that helps me through the year, 

thy sun's ! 



m-^ 



Try now ! Take Asolo's Four Happiest 

Ones — 
And let thy morning rain on that superb 
Great haughty Ottima ; can rain disturb 
Her Sebald's homage ? All the while 

thy rain 
Beats fiercest on her shrub-house win- 
dow-pane, 
He will but press the closer, breathe 

more warm 
Against her cheek ; how should she mind 

the storm ? 
And, morning past, if mid-day shed a 

gloom 
O'er Jules and Phene, — what care bride 

and groom 
Save for their dear selves ? 'T is their 

marriage-day ; 
And while they leave church and go home 

their way, 
Hand clasping hand, within each breast 

would be 
Sunbeams and pleasant weather spite of 

thee. 
|x| Then, for another trial, obscure thy eve 
With mist, — will Luigi and his mother 

grieve — 



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The lady and her child, unmatched, for- 
sooth, 

She in her age, as Luigi in his youth, 

For true content ? The cheerful town, 
warm, close 

And safe, the sooner that thou art morose, , ^ / 

Receives them. And yet once again, ^^jl 
outbreak 

In storm at night on Monsignor, they 
make 

Such stir about, — whom they expect 
from Rome 

To visit Asolo, his brothers' home. 

And say here masses proper to release 

A soul from pain, — what storm dares 
hurt his peace ? 

Calm would he pray, with his own 
thoughts to ward 

Thy thunder off, nor want the angels' 
guard. 

But Pippa — just one such mischance 
would spoil 

Her day that lightens the next twelve- 
month's toil 

At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil ! 



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And here I let time slip for nought! 
Aha, you foolhardy sunbeam, caught 
With a single splash from my ewer ! 
You that would mock the best pursuer. 
Was my basin over-deep ? 
One splash of water ruins you asleep, 
And up, up, fleet your brilliant bits 
Wheeling and counterwheeling, 
Reeling, broken beyond healing : 
Now grow together on the ceiling ! 
That will task your wits. 
Whoever it was quenched fire first, hoped 

to see 
Morsel after morsel flee 
As merrily, as giddily . . . 
Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on, 
Where settles by degrees the radiant 

cripple ? 




Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon ? 
New-blown and ruddy as St. Agnes' 
nipple, 
■[/; Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk 
\~ bird's poll ! 
y^p Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ^ 
■X:^ ripple 
_ _ AhH Of ocean, bud there, — fairies watch =^'^i^\^]lr 
iS-v)^'?-'V5'^ unroll ~ " 




?>>^r^,Ti/>|— Such turban-flowers; I say, such lamps ^^'■■j^pY^Jiy/^ 
rj=^l^Mrj fe== Thick red flame through that dusk green ^^'\ ^" ( /(^■=='= 



Thick red flame through that dusk green 
universe ! 
^^Mifi^%]l'^^^ I am queen of thee, floweret ! 
\r~=^ l^^ C^'^N^ And each fleshy blossom 
~^''*^^^((=)Tj^^ Preserve I not — (safer 

]\^= Than leaves that embower it. 
Or shells that embosom) 

— From weevil and chafer ? 

f^^/^^Sal Laugh through my pane then ; solicit the 

mjVM Gibe him, be sure ; and, in midst of thy 

¥M ^^^^' 

N^H Love thy queen, worship me ! 



ml 




— "Worship whom else ? For am I not, 

this day, 
Whate'er I please ? What shall I please 

to-day ? 
My morn, noon, eve and night — how 

spend my day ? 
To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds 

silk. 
The whole year round, to earn just bread 

and milk : 
But, this one day, I have leave to go, 
And play out my fancy's fullest games ; 
I may fancy all day — and it shall be so — 
That I taste of the pleasures, am called 

by the names 
Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo ! 

See ! Up the hillside yonder, through 

the morning. 
Some one shall love me, as the world calls 

love : 
I am no less than Ottima, take warning! 
The gardens, and the great stone house 

above. 



A>^ 




And other house for shrubs, all glass in 

front, 
Are mine ; where Sebald steals, as he is 

wont, 
To court me, while old Luca yet reposes : 
And therefore, till the shrub-house door 

uncloses, 
I . . . what now ? — give abundant cause 

for prate 
About me — Ottima, I mean — of late. 
Too bold, too confident she '11 still face 

down 
The spitefullest of talkers in our town. 
How we talk in the little town below ! 

But love, love, love — there 's better 

love, I know ! 
This foolish love was only day's first 

offer ; 
I choose my next love to defy the scoffer : 
For do not our Bride and Bridegroom 

sally 
Out of Possagno church at noon ? 
Their house looks over Orcana valley : 



vi>> 



W^M& 




— Not envy, sure ! — for if you gave me 
Leave to take or to refuse, 
In earnest, do you think I 'd choose 
That sort of new love to enslave me ? 
Mine should have lapped me round from 
the beginning ; 




As little fear of losing it as winning: 
Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their 

wives, 
And only parents' love can last our lives. 
At eve the Son and Mother, gentle pair, 
Commune inside our turret : what pre- 
vents 
My being Luigi ? While that mossy lair 
Of lizards through the winter-time is 

stirred 
With each to each imparting sweet intents 
For this new-year, as brooding bird to 

bird — 
(For I observe of late, the evening walk 
Of Luigi and his mother, always ends 
Inside our ruined turret, where they talk, 
Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than 

friends) 
— Let me be cared about, kept out of 

harm, 
And schemed for, safe in love as with a 

charm ; 



IS 



Z"}^ 







Let me be Luigi ! If I only knew 
What was my mother's face — my father, 

too! 

Nay, if you come to that, best love of all 
Is God's ; then why not have God's love 

befall 
Myself as, in the palace by the Dome, 
Monsignor ? — who to-night will bless the 

home 
Of his dead brother ; and God bless in 

turn 
That heart which beats, those eyes which 

mildly burn 
With love for all men ! I, to-night at 

least. 
Would be that holy and beloved priest. 



Now wait ! — even I already seem to 

share 
In God's love : what does New-year's 

hymn declare ? 
What other meaning do these verses 

bear ? 



J'^ 





\_ojr 



I. MORNING. Up the Hillside, inside the 
Shrub-house. LUCA'S Wife, OTTIMA, and 
her Paramour, the German SEBALD. 

Seb. [sings.] Let the watching lids wink ! 

Day 's ablaze w^ith eyes, think ! 
Deep into the night, drink ! 

Ott'i. Night ? Such may be your Rhine- 
land nights, perhaps ; 
But this blood-red beam through the 

shutter's chink 
— We call such light, the morning : let 

us see ! 
Mind how you grope your way, though ! 

How these tall 
Naked geraniums straggle ! Push the 

lattice 
Behind that frame ! — Nay, do I bid you ? 

— Sebald, 
It shakes the dust down on me ! Why, 

of course 
The slide-bolt catches. Well, are you 

content, 
Or must I find you something else to 

spoil ? 
Kiss and be friends, my Sebald ! Is 't 

full morning ? 
Oh, don't speak then ! 



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Seb. Ay, thus it used to be ! 

Ever your house was, I remember, shut 
Till mid-day ; I observed that, as I strolled 
On mornings through the vale here ; 

country girls 
Were noisy, washing garments in the 

brook, 
Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the 

hills : 
But no, your house was mute, would ope 

no eye ! 
And wisely : you were plotting one thing 

there, 
Nature, another outside. I looked up — 
Rough white wood shutters, rusty iron 

bars, 
Silent as death, blind in a flood of light. 
Oh, I remember! — and the peasants 

laughed 
And said, " The old man sleeps with the 

young wife." 
This house was his, this chair, this win- 
dow — his. 




Otti. Ah, the clear morning ! I can see 

St. Mark's ; 
That black streak is the belfry. Stop : 

Vicenza 
Should lie . . . there 's Padua, plain 

enough, that blue ! 
Look o'er my shoulder, follow my finger ! 
Seb. Morning ? 

It seems to me a night with a sun added. 
Where 's dew, where 's freshness ? That 

bruised plant, I bruised 
In getting through the lattice yestereve, 
Droops as it did. See, here 's my elbow's 

mark 
I' the dust o' the sill. 

Otti. Oh, shut the lattice, pray ! 

Let me lean out. I cannot scent 

blood here, 
Foul as the morn may be. 

There, shut the world out ! 
How do you feel now, Ottima.? There, 

curse 




OME A^D:tiSVini^E^SJL 




The world and all outside ! Let us throw- 
off 
This mask : how do you bear yourself ? 

Let 's out 
' With all of it ! 
Otti. Best never speak of it. 

Seb. Best speak again and yet again of 

it, 
Till words cease to be more than words. 

" His blood," 
For instance — let those two words mean, 

" His blood " 
And nothing more. Notice, I '11 say them 

now, 
" His blood." 

Otti. Assuredly if I repented 

The deed — 
Seb. Repent ? Who should repent, or 

why ? 
What puts that in your head ? Did I 

once say 
That I repented ? 
Otti. No ; I said the deed . . . 





Seb. 



' The deed " and 



'the 



event — 

just now it was 
"Our passion's fruit" — the devil take 

such cant ! 
Say, once and always, Luca was a 

wittol, 
I am his cut-throat, you are . . . 
Otti. Here 's the wine ; 

I brought it when we left the house above, 
And glasses too — wine of both sorts. 

Black ? White then ? 
Seb. But am not I his cut-throat ? What 

are you ? 
Otti. There trudges on his business from 

the Duomo 
Benet the Capuchin, with his brown hood 
And bare feet ; always in one place at 

church, 
Close under the stone wall by the south 

entry. 
I used to take him for a brown cold piece 
Of the wall's self, as out of it he rose 
To let me pass — at first, I say, I used : 




Now, so has that dumb figure fastened 

on me, 
I rather should account the plastered wall 
A piece of him, so chilly does it strike. 
This, Sebald ? 
Seb. No, the white wine — the white 

wine ! 
Well, Ottima, I promised no new year 
Should rise on us the ancient shameful 

way; 
Nor does it rise. Pour on ! To your 

black eyes ! 
Do you remember last damned New 

Year's day ? 
Otti. You brought those foreign prints. 

W^e looked at them 
Over the wine and fruit. I had to scheme 
To get him from the fire. Nothing but 

saying 
His own set wants the proof-mark, roused 

him up 
To hunt them out. 
Seb. 'Faith 

To fondle you before 



he is not alive 
face. 





Otti. Do you 

Fondle me then ! Who means to take 

your life 
For that, my Sebald ? 

Hark you, Ottima ! 
One thing to guard against. We '11 not 

make much 
One of the other — that is, not make 

more 
Parade of warmth, childish officious coil, 
Than yesterday : as if, sweet, I supposed 
Proof upon proof were needed now, now 

first. 
To show I love you — yes, still love you 

— love you 
In spite of Luca and what 's come to him 
— Sure sign we had him ever in our 

thoughts. 
White sneering old reproachful face and 

all! 
W^e '11 even quarrel, love, at times, as if 
I j/M VVe still could lose each other, were not 



Otti. Love ! 

Seb. Not tied so sure ' 

Because though I was wrought upon, 

have struck 
His insolence back into him — am I 
So surely yours ? — therefore forever 

yours ? 
Otti. Love, to be wise, (one counsel pays 

another,) 
Should we have — months ago, when first 

we loved, 
For instance that May morning we two 

stole 
Under the green ascent of sycamores — 
If we had come upon a thing like that 
Suddenly . . . 
Seb. " A thing " — there again — "a 

thing ! " 
Otti. Then, Venus' body, had we come 

upon 
My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered 

corpse 
Within there, at his couch-foot, covered 

close — 




"Would you have pored upon it ? Why 

persist 
In poring now upon it ? For 't is here 
As much as there in the deserted house : 
You cannot rid your eyes of it. For me, 
Now he is dead I hate him worse : I 

hate . . . 
Dare you stay here ? I would go back 

and hold 
His two dead hands, and say, " I hate 

yt)u worse, 
Luca, than "... 

Seb. Off, off — take your hands off mine, 
'T is the hot evening — off ! oh, morning 

is it ? 
Otti. There's one thing must be done; 

you know what thing. 
Come in and help to carry. We may 

sleep 
Anywhere in the whole wide house to- 
night. 
Seb. What would come, think you, if we 

let him lie 
Just as he is ? Let him lie there until 




U: 



The angels take him ! He is turned by 

this 
Off from his face beside, as you will see. 
Otti. This dusty pane might serve for 

looking-glass. 
Three, four — four gray hairs ! Is it so 

you said 
A plait of hair should wave across my 

neck ? 
No — this way. 

Seb. Ottima, I would give your neck, 

Each splendid shoulder, both those 

breasts of yours, 
That this were undone ! Killing ! Kill 

the world. 
So Luca lives again ! — ay, lives to sputter 
His fulsome dotage on you — yes, and 

feign 
Surprise that I return at eve to sup. 
When all the morning I was loitering 

here — 
Bid me despatch my business and begone. 
I would . . . 



- i^V£^ 

Otti. My poor lost friend ! 

Seb. He gave me 

I Life, nothing less : what if he did reproach I 

I My perfidy, and threaten, and do more — 

I Had he no right ? What was to wonder 

at? 
He sat by us at table quietly : 
Why must you lean across till our cheeks 

touched ? 
Could he do less than make pretence to 

strike ? 
'T is not the crime's sake — I 'd commit 

ten crimes 
Greater, to have this crime wiped out, 

undone ! 
And you — O how feel you? Feel you 

for me ? 
Otti. Well then, I love you better now 

than ever. 
And best (look at me while I speak to 

you) — 
Best for the crime ; nor do I grieve, in 

truth. 
This mask, this simulated ignorance. 



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Lest you should grow too full of me — 

your face 
So seemed athirst for miy whole soul and 

body ! 
Otti. And when I ventured to receive 

you here, 
Made you steal hither in the mornings — 
Seb. When 

I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house 

here, 
Till the red fire on its glazed windows 

spread 
To a yellow haze ? 

Otti. Ah — my sign was, the sun 

Infiamed the sere side of yon chestnut- 
tree 
Nipped by the first frost. 
Seb. You would always laugh 

At my wet boots : I had to stride through 

grass 
Over my ankles. 
Otti. Then our crowning night ! / 



S^vrfM'::'* ' 



Seb. The July night ? 

Otti. The day of it too, Sebald ! 

When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed 
with heat, 

Its black-blue canopy suffered descend 

Close on us both, to weigh down each to 
each. 

And smother up all life except our life. 

So lay we till the storm came. 

Seb. How it came ! 

Otti. Buried in woods we lay, you recol- 
lect ; 

Swift ran the searching tempest over- 
head ; 

And ever and anon some bright white 
shaft 

Burned through the pine-tree roof, here 
burned and there. 

As if God's messenger through the close 
wood screen 

Plunged and replunged his weapon at a 
venture, 

Feeling for guilty thee and me : then 
broke 

The thunder like a whole sea overhead — 



•^M 



^ti. 



. N 1^ 



Seb. Yes! 

Otti. — While I stretched myself upon 

you, hands 
To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, 

and shook 
All my locks loose, and covered you with 

them — 
You, Sebald, the same you ! 
Seb. Slower, Ottima! 

Otti. And as we lay — 
Seb. Less vehemently ! Love me ! 

Forgive me ! Take not words, mere 

words, to heart ! 
Your breath is worse than wine. Breathe 

slow, speak slow ! 
Do not lean on me ! 

Otti. Sebald, as we lay. 

Rising and falling only with our pants, 
W^ho said, " Let death come now ! 'T is 

right to die ! 
Right to be punished ! Nought com- 
pletes such bliss 





But woe ! " Who said that ? 

Seb. How did we ever rise ? 

Was 't that we slept ? Why did it end ? 

Otti. I felt you 

Taper into a point the ruffled ends 

Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid 
lips. 

My hair is fallen now : knot it again ! 

Seb. I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now 
and now ! 

This way ? Will you forgive me — be 
once more 

My great queen ? 

Otti. Bind it thrice about my brow; 

Crown me your queen, your spirit's 
arbitress, 

Magnificent in sin. Say that ! 

Seb. I crown you 

My great white queen, my spirit's arbi- 
tress. 

Magnificent . . 








v^S- 



Outright now ! — how miraculously gone 
All of the grace — had she not strange 

grace once ? 
^A^hy, the blank cheek hangs listless as 

it likes, 
No purpose holds the features up to- 
gether, 
Only the cloven brow and puckered chin 
Stay in their places : and the very hair. 
That seemed to have a sort of life in it, 
Drops, a dead web ! 

Otti. Speak to me — not of me ! 

Seb. — That round great full-orbed face, 

where not an angle 
Broke the delicious indolence — all 

broken ! 
Otti. To me — not of me ! Ungrateful, 

perjured cheat ! 
A coward too : but ingrate 's worse than 

all! 
Beggar — my slave — a fawning, cringing 

lie! 
Leave me ! Betray me ! I can see your 

drift ! 
A lie that walks and eats and drinks ! 




Seb. My God ! 

Those morbid olive faultless shoulder- 
blades — 
I should have known there was no blood 

beneath ! 
Otti. You hate me then ? You hate me 

then? 
Seb. To think 

She would succeed in her absurd attempt, 
And fascinate by sinning, show herself 
Superior — guilt from its excess superior 
To innocence ! That little peasant's voice 
Has righted all again. Though I be 

lost, 
I know which is the better, never fear. 
Of vice or virtue, purity or lust, 
Nature or trick ! I see what I have done, 
Entirely now ! Oh, I am proud to feel 
Such torments — let the world take credit 
thence — 




>S£^iNjc,'^Bco>vE^^^SvA^'^^s 



II 




I, having done my deed, pay too its price ! 
I hate, hate — curse you ! God 's in his 

heaven ! 
.Otti. —Me! 

' Me ! no, no, Sebald, not yourself — kill 

me! 
Mine is the whole crime. Do but kill me 

— then 
Yourself — then — presently — first hear 

me speak ! 
I always meant to kill myself — wait, you ! 
Lean on my breast — not as a breast ; 

don't love me 
The more because you lean on me, my 

own 
Heart's Sebald ! There, there, both 

deaths presently ! 
Seb. My brain is drowned now — quite 

drowned : all I feel 
Is . . . is, at swift-recurring intervals, 
A hurry-down within me, as of waters 
Loosened to smother up some ghastly 

pit: 
There they go — whirls from a black 

fiery sea ! 
Otti. Not me — to him, O God, be merci- 
ful ! 





Talk by the way, while PIPPA is passing from the 
hillside to Orcana. Foreign Students of Paint- 
ing and Sculpture, from Venice, assembled op- 
posite the house of JULES, a young French 
Statuary, at Possagno. 

1st Student. Attention ! My own post is 
beneath this window, but the pomegran- 
ate clump yonder will hide three or four 
of you with a little squeezing, and 
Schramm and his pipe must lie flat in 
the balcony. Four, five — who's a de- 
faulter ? "We want everybody, for Jules 
must not be suffered to hurt his bride 
when the jest 's found out. 
2d Stud. All here ! Only our poet 's away 
— never having much meant to be present, 
moonstrike him ! The airs of that fellow, 
that Giovacchino ! He was in violent 
love with himself, and had a fair prospect 




of thriving in his suit, so unmolested was 
it, — when suddenly a woman falls in love 
with him, too; and out of pure jealousy 
he takes himself off to Trieste, immortal 
poem and all : whereto is this prophetical 
epitaph appended already, as Bluphocks 
assures me, — '' Here a mammoth-poem 
lies, Fouled to death by butterflies." His 
own fault, the simpleton ! Instead of 
cramp couplets, each like a knife in your 
entrails, he should write, says Bluphocks, 
both classically and intelligibly. — /Escu- 
lapius, an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs : 
Hebe's plaister — One strip Cools your 
lip. Phoebus' emulsion — One bottle Clears 
your throttle. Mercury's bolus — One box 
Cures . . . 

8d Stud. Subside, my fine fellow ! If 
the marriage was over by ten o'clock, 




Jules will certainly be here in a minute 
with his bride. 

2d Stud. Good ! — only, so should the 
poet's muse have been universally ac- 
ceptable, says Bluphocks, et canibus nos- 
tris , . . and Delia not better known to 
our literary dogs than the boy Giovac- 
chino ! 

1st Stud. To the point, now. Where's 
Gottlieb, the new-comer? Oh, — listen, 
Gottlieb, to what has called down this 
piece of friendly vengeance on Jules, of 
which we now assemble to witness the 
winding-up. "We are all agreed, all in a 
tale, observe, when Jules shall burst out 
on us in a fury by and by : I am spokes- 
man — the verses that are to undeceive 
Jules bear my name of Lutwyche — but 
each professes himself alike insulted by 



/''fV 







this strutting stone-squarer, who came 
alone from Paris to Munich, and thence 
with a crowd of us to Venice and Pos- 
sagno here, but proceeds in a day or two 
alone again — oh, alone indubitably ! — to 
Rome and Florence. He, forsooth, take 
up his portion with these dissolute, bru- 
talized, heartless bunglers ! — so he was 
heard to call us all. Now, is Schramm 
brutalized, I should like to know ? Am I 
heartless ? 

Gott. Why, somewhat heartless ; for, 
suppose Jules a coxcomb as much as you 
choose, still, for this mere coxcombry, 
you will have brushed off — what do folks 
style it? — the bloom of his life. Is it 
too late to alter ? These love-letters 
now, you call his — I can't laugh at 
them. 

4th Stud. Because you never read the 
sham letters of our inditing which drew 
forth these. 



lSSst?5>;..!.-,!:!;.;T„ 

Gotf. His discovery of the truth will be 
frightful. 

4th Stud. That 's the joke. But you 
should have joined us at the beginning : 
there 's no doubt he loves the girl — loves 
a model he might hire by the hour ! 
Gott. See here ! *' He has been accus- 
tomed," he writes, "to have Canova's 
women about him, in stone, and the 
world's women beside him, in flesh; 
these being as much below, as those 
above, his soul's aspiration : but now 
he is to have the reality." There you 
laugh again ! I say, you wipe off the 
very dew of his youth. 
1st Stud. Schramm! (Take the pipe 
out of his mouth, somebody !) Will 
Jules lose the bloom of his youth ? 
Schramm. Nothing worth keeping is ever 
lost in this world : look at a blossom 



viy 



— it drops presently, having done its 
service and lasted its time ; but fruits 
succeed, and where would be the blos- 
som's place could it continue ? As well 
affirm that your eye is no longer in your 
body, because its earliest favorite, what- 
ever it may have first loved to look on, is 
dead and done with — as that any affec- 
tion is lost to the soul when its first 
object, whatever happened first to sat- 
isfy it, is superseded in due course. 
Keep but ever looking, whether with 
the body's eye or the mind's, and you 
will soon find something to look on ! 
Has a man done wondering at women ^ 

— there follow men, dead and alive, to 
wonder at. Has he done wondering at 
men ? — there 's God to wonder at : and 
the faculty of wonder may be, at the 
same time, old and tired enough with 
respect to its first object, and yet young 
and fresh sufficiently, so far as concerns 
its novel one. Thus . . . 



M 



"•'^'^M? 




1st stud. Put Schramm's pipe into his 
mouth again ! There, you see ! Well, 
this Jules . . . a wretched fribble — oh, I 
watched his disportings at Possagno, 
the other day! Canova's gallery — you 
know : there he marches first resolvedly 
past great works by the dozen without 
vouchsafing an eye — all at once he stops 
full at the Psiche-fanciulla — cannot pass 
that old acquaintance without a nod of 
encouragement — "In your new place, 
beauty ? Then behave yourself as well 
here as at Munich — I see you ! " Next 
he posts himself deliberately before the 
unfinished Pieta for half an hour without 
moving, till up he starts of a sudden, and 
thrusts his very nose into — I say, into — 
the group ; by which gesture you are 
informed that precisely the sole point he 
had not fully mastered in Canova's prac- 
tice was a certain method of using the 



i 




drill in the articulation of the knee-joint 
— and that, likewise, has he mastered at 
length ! Good-bye therefore, to poor 
Canova — whose gallery no longer needs 
detain his successor Jules, the predes- 
tinated novel thinker in marble ! 
5th Stud. Tell him about the women: 
I go on to the women ! 
1st Stud. Why, on that matter he could 
never be supercilious enough. How 
should we be other (he said) than the 
poor devils you see, with those debasing 
habits we cherish ? He was not to wal- 
low in that mire, at least : he would wait, 
and love only at the proper time, and 
meanwhile put up with the Psiche- 
fanciulla. Now, I happened to hear of 
a young Greek — real Greek girl at 
Malamocco ; a true Islander, do you 
see, with Alciphron's " hair like sea- 
moss " — Schramm knows ! — white and 
quiet as an apparition, and fourteen years 



old at farthest, — a daughter of Natalia, 
so she swears — that hag Natalia^ who 
helps us to models at three lire an hour. 
We selected this girl for the heroine of 
our jest. So first, Jules received a 
scented letter — somebody had seen 
his Tydeus at the Academy, and my 
picture was nothing to it : a profound 
admirer bade him persevere — would 
make herself known to him ere long. 
(Paolina, my little friend of the Fenice, 
transcribes divinely.) And in due time, 
the mysterious correspondent gave cer- 
tain hints of her peculiar charms — the 
pale cheeks, the black hair — whatever, 
in short, had struck us in our Malamocco 
model : we retained her name, too — 
Phene, which is, by interpretation, sea- 
eagle. Now, think of Jules finding him- 
self distinguished from the herd of us by 
such a creature ! In his very first answer 
he proposed marrying his monitress : and 



fj?-^^:ClBCo>^^^^pvAi;^^sJ 







.Z^ 




. £ 




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^2^ 


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/ 


lOOK/ 


fi 
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iJBVi>Sj 



fancy us over these letters, two, three 
times a day, to receive and dispatch ! I i 
concocted the main of it ; relations were \ 
\ in the way — secrecy must be observed 
— in fine, would he wed her on trust, and 
only speak to her when they were indis- 
solubly united? St — st — Here they 
come ! 

6th Stud. Both of them ! Heaven's love, 
speak softly, speak within yourselves ! 
6th Stud. Look at the bridegroom ! Half 
his hair in storm and half in calm, — 
patted down over the left temple, — like 
a frothy cup one blows on to cool it : and 
the same old blouse that he murders the 
marble in. 

2d Stud. Not a rich vest like yours, 
Hannibal Scratchy ! — rich, that your 
face may the better set it off. 
6th Stud. And the bride ! Yes, sure 
enough, our Phene ! Should you have 



l^^i 




^«ft. 




Do not die, Phene ! 

you 
Are mine now ; let Fate reach me how 

she likes, 
If you'll not die: so, never die! Sit 

here — 
My work-room's single seat. I over-lean 
This length of hair and lustrous front ; 

they turn 
Like an entire flower upward : eyes, lips, 

last 
Your chin — no, last your throat turns: 

't is their scent 
Pulls down my face upon you. Nay, 

look ever 
This one way till I change, grow you — 

I could 
Change into you, beloved ! 

You by me, 
And I by you ; this is your hand in mine. 
And side by side we sit: all's true. 

Thank God! 
I have spoken : speak you ! 




O my life to come ! 
My Tydeus must be carved that 's there 

in clay; 
Yet how be carved, with you about the 

room ? 
Where must I place you ? When I 

think that once 
This room-full of rough block-work 

seemed my heaven 
Without you ! Shall I ever work again, 
Get fairly into my old ways again, 
Bid each conception stand while, trait by 

trait. 
My hand transfers its lineaments to 

stone ? 
Will my mere fancies live near you, 

their truth — 
The live truth, passing and repassing 

me, 
Sitting beside me ? 

Now speak ! 

Only first. 
See, all your letters ! Was 't not well 

contrived ? 




mC 



Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribe — 
Read this line . . . no, shame — Homer's 

be the Greek 
First breathed me from the lips of my 

Greek girl ! 
This Odyssey in coarse black vivid type 
With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page 

and page, 
To mark great places with due gratitude ; 
"He said, and on Antinous directed 
A bitter shaft" ... a flower blots out 

the rest ! 
Again upon your search ? My statues, 

then ! 
— Ah, do not mind that — better that 

will look 
When cast in bronze — an Almaign 

Kaiser, that. 
Swart-green and gold, with truncheon 

based on hip. 
This, rather, turn to ! What, unrecog- 
nized ? 
I thought you would have seen that here 

you sit 
As I imagined you, — Hippolyta, 
Naked upon her bright Numidian horse. 



Recall you this then ? " Carve in bold ^ - ■ - 

relief " — 
So you commanded — " carve, against I 

come, 
A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was, 
Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free, r^t 

Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch. 
' Praise those who slew Hipparchus ! ' 

cry the guests, 
* While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle 

waves 
As erst above our champion : stand up, 

all ! ' " 
See, I have labored to express your 

thought. 
Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and 

(Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all i^f^M^ 

sides. 
Only consenting at the branch's end 
They strain toward) serves for frame to 

a sole face, 
The Praiser's, in the centre : who with 

eyes 
Sightless, so bend they back to light 

inside 




His brain where visionary forms throng- 
up, 
Sings, minding not that palpitating arch 
Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of 

wine 
From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor 

crowns cast off, 
Violet and parsley crowns to trample 

on — 
Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts 

approve. 
Devoutly their unconquerable hymn. 
But you must say a " well " to that — say 

" well " ! 
Because you gaze — am I fantastic, 

sweet ? 
Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble — 

marbly 
Even to the silence ! Why, before' I 

found 
The real flesh Phene, 1 inured myself 
To see, throughout all nature, varied 

stuff 
For better nature's birth by means of art : 
With me, each substance tended to one 

form 



/^S^ 



Jl 




Of beauty — to the human archetype. 
On every side occurred suggestive germs 
Of that — the tree, the flower — or take 

the fruit, — 
Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, 
A Curved beewise o'er its bough ; as rosy 

limbs. 
Depending, nestled in the leaves ; and 

just 
From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad 

sprang. 
But of the stuffs one can be master of. 
How I divined their capabilities ! 
From the soft-rinded smoothening facile 

chalk 
That yields your outline to the air's 

embrace. 
Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom ; 
Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure 
To cut its one confided thought clean out 
Of all the world. But marble ! — 'neath 

my tools 




Tiie Drjy2^ 






More pliable than jelly — as it were 
Some clear primordial creature dug from 

depths 
In the earth's heart, where itself breeds 

itself, 
And whence all baser substance may be 

worked ; 
Refine it off to air, you may, — condense 

it 
Down to the diamond ; — is not metal 

there. 
When o'er the sudden speck my chisel 

trips ? 
— Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, 

approach, 
Lay bare those bluish veins of blood 

asleep ? 
Lurks flame in no strange windings 

where, surprised 
By the swift implement sent home at 

once. 
Flushes and glowings radiate and hover 
About its track ? 

Phene ? what — why is this ? 
I ^^Ji That whitening cheek, those still dilating 

[life: Ah, you will die — I knew that you 
"' ■ would die ! 



■^B 



l^\ 



'■^=^-^^^ 


_jV0.. 


^<^-"^;^jr^:= 


"^ 



PHENE begins, on his having long remained 
silent. 

Now the end 's coming ; to be sure, it 

must 
Have ended sometime ! Tush, why need 

I speak 
Their foolish speech ? I cannot bring to 

mind 
One half of it, beside ; and do not care 
For old Natalia now, nor any of them. 
Oh, you — what are you ? — if I do not try 
To say the words Natalia made me learn, 
To please your friends, — it is to keep 

myself 
Where your voice lifted me, by letting 

that 
Proceed : but can it ? Even you, perhaps, 
Cannot take up, now you have once let 

fall, 

and me along with 



The music's life, 

that — 
No, or you would ! 

we are : 
Above the world. 



We '11 stay, then, as 



V^i3^'^ 





More of your words to me : was 't in the 

tone 
Or the words, your power ? 
I Or stay — I will repeat 
Their speech, if that contents you ! Only 

change 
No more, and I shall find it presently 
Far back here, in the brain yourself filled 

up. 
Natalia threatened me that harm should 

follow 
Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, 
But harm to me, I thought she meant, 

not you. 
Your friends, — Natalia said they were 

your friends 
And meant you well, — because I doubted 

it, 
Observing (what was very strange to see) 
On every face, so different in all else, 
The same smile girls like me are used to 

bear, 
But never men, men cannot stoop so low ; 






• — As in the apple's core, the noisome fly : 
For insects on the rind are seen at once, 
And brushed aside as soon, but this is 

found 
Only when on the lips or loathing tongue." 
And so he read what I have got by heart : 
I '11 speak it, — " Do not die, love ! I am 

yours "... 
No — is not that, or like that, part of 

words 
Yourself began by speaking ? Strange 

to lose 
What cost such pains to learn ! Is this 

more right ? 




In the hatefullest nook to dwell ; 

But lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love 

Where the shadow threefold fell. 

(The meaning — those black bride's eyes above, 

Not a painter's lip should tell !) 




"And here," said he, "Jules probably 

will ask, 
' You have black eyes, Love, — you are, 

sure enough. 
My peerless bride, — then do you tell 

indeed 
What needs some explanation ! What 

means this ? ' " 
— And I am to go on, without a word — 



,^''''^=^1 




il 




And seek in the Valley of Love 

The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove, 

Where my soul may surely reach 

The essence, nought less, of each. 

The Hate of all Hates, the Love 

Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove, — 

I find them the very warders 

Each of the other's borders. 

When I love most, Love is disguised 

In Hate ; and when Hate is surprised 

In Love, then I hate most : ask 

How^ Love smiles through Hate's iron casque, 

Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask, - 

And how, having hated thee, 




.j^^i^ 



JULES resumes. 
What name was that the little girl sang 

forth ? 
Kate ? The Cornaro, doubtless, who re- 
nounced 
The crown of Cyprus to be lady here 
At Asolo, where still her memory stays, 
And peasants sing how once a certain 

page 
Pined for the grace of her so far above 
His power of doing good to, " Kate the 

Queen — 
She never could be wronged, be poor," 

he sighed, 
" Need him to help her ! " 

Yes, a bitter thing 
To see our lady above all need of us ; 
Yet so we look ere we will love ; not I, 
Bat the world looks so. If whoever loves 
Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper. 




The blessing or the blest one, queen or 

page, 
\A^hy should we always choose the page's 

part ? 
Here is a woman with utter need of 

me, — 
I find myself queen here, it seems ! 

How strange ! 
Look at the woman here with the new 

soul. 
Like my own Psyche, — fresh upon her 

lips 
Alit, the visionary butterfly. 
Waiting my word to enter and make 

bright, 
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. 
This body had no soul before, but slept 
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, 

free 
From taint or foul with stain, as outward 

things 
Fastened their image on its passiveness : 
Now, it will wake, feel, live — or die 

again ! 




Shall to produce form out of unshaped 

stuff 
Be Art — and further, to evoke a soul 
From form be nothing ? This new soul 

is mine ! 

Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that 

do ?— save 
A wretched dauber, men will hoot to 

death 
"Without me, from their hooting. Oh, to 

hear 
God's voice plain as I heard it first, before 
They broke in with their laughter ! I 

heard them 
Henceforth, not God. 

To Ancona — Greece — some isle 
I wanted silence only ; there is clay 
Everywhere. One may do whate'er one 

likes 
In Art : the only thing is, to make sure 
That one does like it — which takes pains 

to know. 



o>sg^j^g§S\w^<s](^ 





Scatter all this, my Phene — this mad 

dream ! 
Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's | 

friends. 
What the whole world except our love — 

my own. 
Own Phene ? But I told you, did I not. 
Ere night we travel for your land — some 

isle 
W^ith the sea's silence on it ? Stand 

aside — 
I do but break these paltry models up 
To begin Art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, 

I — 
And save him from my statue meeting 

him ? 
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas! 
Like a god going through his world, there 

stands 
One mountain for a moment in the dusk. 
Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its 

brow : 
And you are ever by me while I gaze 
— Are in my arms as now — as now — as 

now ! 
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas ! 
Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas ! 



^^^ 



/«ft. 




Bluphocks.* So, that is your Pippa, 
the little girl who passed us singing ? 
Well, your Bishop's Intendant's money 
shall be honestly earned : — now, don't 
make me that sour face because I bring 
the Bishop's name into the business ; 
we know he can have nothing to do with 
such horrors : we know that he is a saint 
and all that a bishop should be, who is a 
great man beside. Oh were but every 
worm a maggot, Every fly a grig, Every 
bough a Christmas fagot. Every tune a 
jig ! In fact, I have abjured all reli- 
gions ; but the last I inclined to was the 



* " He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on 
the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the 
unjust." 



1 




Arminian: for I have travelled, do you 
see, and at Koenigsberg-, Prussia Im- 
proper (so styled because there 's a sort 
of bleak hungry sun there), you might 
remark over a venerable house-porch, 
a certain Chaldee inscription : and brief 
as it is, a mere glance at it used abso- 
lutely to change the mood of every 
bearded passenger. In they turned, one 
and all ; the young and lightsome, with 
no irreverent pause, the aged and de- 
crepit, with a sensible alacrity: 'twas 
the Grand Rabbi's abode, in short. 
Struck with curiosity, I lost no time 
in learning Syriac — (these are vowels, 
you dogs, — follow my stick's end in 
the mud — Celarent, Dan'i, Ferio ! ) and 
one morning presented myself, spelling- 
book in hand, a, b, c, — I picked it out 
letter by letter, and what was the purport 



I 



A 




of this miraculous posy ? Some cher- 
ished legend of the past, you '11 say 

— "How Moses hocus-pocussed Egypt's 
land with fly and locust," — or, "How to 
Jonah sounded harshish, Get thee up and 
go to Tarshish," — or, "How the angel 
meeting Balaam, Straight his ass returned 
a salaam." In no wise! " Shackabrack 

— Boach — somebody or other — Isaach, 
Re-cei-uer, Pur-cha-ser and Ex-chan-ger 
of — Stolen Goods!" So, talk to me of 
the religion of a bishop ! I have re- 
nounced all Bishops save Bishop Beve- 
ridge ! — mean to live so — and die — As 
some Greek dog-sage, dead and merry. 
Hell ward bound in Charon's wherry. With 
food for both worlds, under and upper, 
Lupine-seed and Hecate's supper, And 
never an obolus . . . (Though thanks to 
you, or this Intendant through you, or 



y^?^ 



IC'^'^c'^ 




^^X;'jDOJX_^ptl_^^^w^Vv^2s^^ — ^ 



this Bishop through his Intendant — I 
possess a burning pocket-full of zwan- 
zigers) . . . To pay the Stygian Ferry ! 
1st Pol. There is the girl, then ; go and 
deserve them the moment you have 
pointed out to us Signor Luigi and his 
mother. {To the rest.^ I have been 
noticing a house yonder, this long while : 
not a shutter unclosed since morning! 
2d Pol. Old Luca Gaddi's, that owns the 
silk-mills here : he dozes by the hour, 
wakes up, sighs deeply, says he should 
like to be Prince Metternich, and then 
dozes again, after having bidden young 
Sebald, the foreigner, set his wife to 
playing draughts. Never molest such 
a household, they mean well. 



c 


Blup. Only, cannot you 
thing of this little Pippa 


tell 

I 


me 
must 


some- 
have 




^ 


J 


^ 


^=% 


^ 




4 


^ 


i ^ 






kM- 






to do with ? One could make something 
of that name. Pippa — that is, short for 
Felippa — rhyming to Panurge consults 
Hertrippa — Belieuest thou, King Agn'ppa? 
Something might be done with that name. 
2d Pol. Put into rhyme that your head 
and a ripe muskmelon would not be 
dear at half a zwanziger ! Leave this 
fooling, and look out ; the afternoon 's 
over or nearly so. 

8d Pol. Where in this passport of Signor 
Luigi does our Principal instruct you to 
watch him so narrowly? There? What's 
there beside a simple signature? (That 
English fool's busy watching.) 
2d Pol. Flourish all round — " Put all 
/•^i possible obstacles in his way ; " oblong 
dot at the end — " Detain him till further 



advices reach you ; " scratch at bottom 

— "Send him back on pretence of some 
informality in the above ; " ink-spirt on 
right-hand side (which is the case here) 

— " Arrest him at once." Why and 
wherefore, I don't concern myself, but 
my instructions amount to this: if 
Signor Luigi leaves home to-night for 
Vienna — well and good, the passport 
deposed with us for our uisa is really for 
his own use, they have misinformed the 
Office, and he means well ; but let him 
stay over to-night — there has been the 
pretence we suspect, the accounts of his 
corresponding and holding intelligence 
with the Carbonari are correct, we arrest 
him at once, to-morrow comes Venice, 
and presently Spielberg. Bluphocks 
makes the signal, sure enough ! That 
is he, entering the turret with his 
mother, no doubt. 





LsliilLBJS^^^r^^iR^ 




Hand under chin of each grave earthy 

face. 
Up and show faces all of you ! ~ " All of 

you ! " 
That 's the king dwarf with the scarlet 

comb ; old Franz, 
Come down and meet your fate ? Hark 

— " Meet your fate ! " 

Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi 

— do not 

Go to his City! Putting crime aside, 
Half of these ills of Italy are feigned : 
Your Pellicos and writers for effect, 
Write for effect. 

Luigi. Hush ! Say A writes, and B. 

/Mother. These A's and B's write for 

effect, I say. 
Then, evil is in its nature loud, while 

good 
Is silent ; you hear each petty injury. 
None of his virtues ; he is old beside. 
Quiet and kind, and densely stupid. 

Why 
Do A and B not kill him themselves ? 




And see men merry as if no Italy 

Were suffering; then I ponder — " I am 
rich, 

Young, healthy ; why should this fact 
trouble me, 

More than it troubles these ? " But it 
does trouble. 

No, trouble 's a bad word ; for as I walk 

There 's springing and melody and giddi- 
ness. 

And old quaint turns and passages of my 
youth. 

Dreams long forgotten, little in them- 
selves, 

Return to me — whatever may amuse 
me : 

And earth seems in a truce with me, and 
heaven 

Accords with me, all things suspend their 
strife. 

The very cicala laughs " There goes he, 
and there ! 

Feast him, the time is short ; he is on his 
way 

For the world's sake : feast him this 
once, our friend ! " 

And in return for all this, I can trip 





Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go 
This evening, mother ! 
Mother. But mistrust yourself — 

Mistrust the judgment you pronounce 

on him ! 
Luigi. Oh, there I feel — am sure that I 

am right ! 
Mother. Mistrust your judgment then, 

of the mere means 
To this wild enterprise : say, you are 

right, — 
How should one in your state e'er bring 

to pass 
What would require a cool head, a cold 

heart. 
And a calm hand ? You never will 

escape. 
Luigi. Escape? To even wish that, 

would spoil ail. 
The dying is best part of it. Too much 
Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of 

mine, 
To leave myself excuse for longer life : 
Was not life pressed down, running o'er 

with joy. 




E/xk /^pi 



^OX>, pULt^^JVv^JV^ 




That I might finish with it ere my fellows 
Who, sparelier feasted, make a longer 

stay ? 
I was put at the board-head, helped to all 
At first ; I rise up happy and content. 
God must be glad one loves his world so 

much. 
I can give news of earth to all the dead 
Who ask me : — last year's sunsets, and 

great stars 
Which had a right to come first and see 

ebb 
The crimson wave that drifts the sun 

away — 
Those crescent moons with notched and 

burning rims 
That strengthened into sharp fire, and 

there stood. 
Impatient of the azure — and that day 
In March, a double rainbow stopped the 

storm — 
May's warm slow yellow moonlit sum- 
mer nights — 
Gone are they, but I have them in my 

soul ! 



S^"^ 

^3^ 



Will serve, but no one ever will consider 
For what his worst defect might serve 

and yet 
Have you not seen me range our coppice 

yonder 
In search of a distorted ash? — I find 
The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect 

bow. 
Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precau- 

tioned man 
Arriving at the palace on my errand ! 
No, no ! I have a handsome dress 

packed up — 
White satin here, to set off my black 

hair ; 
In I shall march — for you may watch 

your life out 
Behind thick walls, make friends there to 

betray you ; 
More than one man spoils everything. 

March straight — 
Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for, 
Take the great gate, and walk (not 

saunter) on 
Through guards and guards — I have 

rehearsed it all 



^Ji 



Inside the turret here a hundred times. 
Don't ask the way of whom you ineet, 

observe ! 
But where they cluster thickliest is the 

door 
Of doors; they'll let you pass — they'll 

never blab 
Each to the other, he knows not the 

favorite, 
Whence he is bound and what 's his 

business now. 
Walk in — straight up to him ; you have 

no knife : 
Be prompt, how should he scream ? 

Then, out with you ! 
Italy, Italy, my Italy ! 
You 're free, you 're free ! Oh mother, I 

could dream 
They got about me — Andrea from his 

exile. 
Pier from his dungeon, Gualtier from his 

grave ! 
Mother. Well, you shall go. Yet seems 

this patriotism 
The easiest virtue for a selfish man 
To acquire : he loves himself — and next, 

the world — 







If he must love beyond, — but nought 
between : 

As a short-sighted man sees nought 
midway 

His body and the sun above. But you 

Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient 

To my least wish, and running o'er with 
love : 

I could not call you cruel or unkind. 

Once more, your ground for killing him ! 
— then go ! 

Luigi. Now do you try me, or make 
sport of me ? 

How first the Austrians got these prov- 
inces . . . 

(If that is all, I '11 satisfy you soon) 

— Never by conquest but by cunning, for 

That treaty whereby . . . 

Motlier. Well ? 

Luigi. (Sure, he 's arrived. 

The tell-tale cuckoo : spring 's his confi- 
dant, 





Luigi. True, mother. Well for those 

who live through June ! ^/.. 

[ Great noontides, thunder-storms, all| 

g-laring pomps 
That triumph at the heels of June the ^^'^■^^^x^ 

god 
Leading his revel through our leafy world. 
Yes, Chiara will be here. 
Mother. In June : remember, 

Yourself appointed that month for her 

coming. 
Luigi. Was that low noise the echo 1 
Mother. The night-wind. 

She must be grown — with her blue eyes 

upturned 
As if life were one long and sweet 

surprise : 
In June she comes. 

Luigi. We were to see together 

The Titian at Treviso. There, again ! 




[From without is heard the voice of PIPPA, sing- 
ing— 

A king lived long ago, 

In the morning of the world, 

When earth was nigher heaven than now ; 

And the king's locks curled, 

Disparting o'er a forehead full 

As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn 

Of some sacrificial bull — 

Only calm as a babe new^-born : 

For he was got to a sleepy mood, 

So safe from all decrepitude, 

Age with Its bane, so sure gone by, 

(The gods so loved him while he dreamed) 

That, having lived thus long, there seemed 

No need the king should ever die. 



-..^^ 








Talk by the way, while PIPPA is passing from the 
Turret to the Bishop's Brother's House, close 
to the Duomo S. Maria. Poor GIRLS sitting 
on the steps. 

1st Girl. There goes a swallow to Venice 

— the stout seafarer! 
Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish 

for wings. 
Let us all wish ; you, wish first ! 
2cl Girl. I ? This sunset 

To finish. 

3d Girl. That old — somebody I know, 
Grayer and older than my grandfather, 
To give me the same treat he gave last 

week — 
Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers. 
Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and 

mumbling 
The while some folly about how well 1 

fare. 
Let sit and eat my supper quietly : 




Since had he not himself been late this 

morning 
Detained at — never mind where, — had 

he not ... 
" Eh, baggage, had I not ! " — 
2d Girl. How she can lie ! 

8d Girl. Look there — by the nails ! 
2d Girl. What makes your fingers red ? 
Sd Girl. Dipping them into wine to write 

bad words with 
On the bright table : how he laughed ! 
1st Girl. My turn. 

Spring's come and summer's coming. 

I would wear 
A long loose gown, down to the feet and 

hands. 
With plaits here, close about the throat, 

all day ; 
And all night lie, the cool long nights, in 

bed; 
And have new milk to drink, apples to 

eat, 
Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats 

. . . ah, I should say. 
This is away in the fields — miles ! 



A3^ 



8cl Girl. Say at once 

You 'd be at home : she 'd always be at 

home ! 
Now comes the story of the farm among 
The cherry orchards, and how April 

snowed 
White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, 

fool, 
They 've rubbed the chalk-mark out, how 

tall you were. 
Twisted your starling's neck, broken his 

cage, 
Made a dung-hill of your garden ! 
1st Girl. They destroy 

My garden- since I left them ? well — 

perhaps 
I would have done so : so I hope they 

have ! 
A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall ; 
They called it mine, I have forgotten why, 
It must have been there long ere I was 

born: 
Cric — eric — I think I hear the wasps 

o'erhead 



n 



j^ 




1st Girl. When I was young, they said 

if you killed one 
Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend 
Up there, would shine no more that day 

nor next. 
2d Girl. When you were young ? Nor 

are you young, that 's true. 
How your plump arms, that were, have 

dropped away ! 
Why, I can span them. Cecco beats 

you still 7 
No matter, so you keep your curious 

hair. 
I wish they 'd find a way to dye our hair 
Your color — any lighter tint, indeed. 
Than black : the men say they are sick 

of black, 
Black eyes, black hair ! 
4th Girl. Sick of yours, like enough. 

Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys 
And ortolans ? Giovita, of the palace, 






)1p 



Engaged (but there 's no trusting him) 

to slice me 
Polenta with a knife that had cut up 
An ortolan. 

2c/ Girl. Why, there ! Is not that Pippa 
We are to talk to, under the window, — 

quick ! — 
Where the lights are ? 
7s* Girl. That she ? No, or she would 

sing, 
For the Intendant said . . . 
8d Girl. Oh, you sing first ! 

Then, if she listens and comes close . . . 

I '11 tell you,— 
Sing that song the young English noble 

made, 
Who took you for the purest of the pure, 
And meant to leave the world for you — 

what fun ! 
2cl Girl, [sings.l 



' 5£KINCl&0AVE_^^glSvAno^s:(J^ 



NIGHT 




Mon. Thanks, friends, many thanks ! I 
chiefly desire life now, that I may 
recompense every one of you. Most I 
know something of already. What, a 
repast prepared ? Benedicto benedicatur 
. . . ugh, ugh ! Where was I ? Oh, as 
you were remarking, Ugo, the weather is 
mild, very unlike winter-weather : but I 
am a Sicilian, you know, and shiver in 
your Julys here. To be sure, when 
't was full summer at Messina, as we 
priests used to cross in procession 
the great square on Assumption Day, 
you might see our thickest yellow tapers 
twist suddenly in two, each like a falling 
star, or sink down on themselves in a 
gore of wax. But go, my friends, but 
go ! [To the INTENDANT.] Not yOU, UgO ! 
[The others leave the apartment.] I have long 
wanted to converse with you, Ugo. 



-'iw'mm/i:;;^ 



K^^^^^' 



SW^^'" 




Inten. Uguccio — 

Mon. . . . 'guccio Stefani, man! of As- 
coli, Fermo and Fossombruno ; — what 
I do need instructing about, are these 
accounts of your administration of my 
poor brother's affairs. Ugh ! I shall 
never get through a third part of your 
accounts : take some of these dainties 
before we attempt it, however. Are 
you bashful to that degree ? For me, a 
crust and water suffice. 
Inten. Do you choose this especial night 
to question me ? 

Mon. This night, Ugo. You have man- 
aged my late brother's affairs since the 
death of our elder brother : fourteen years 
and a month, all but three days. On the 
Third of December, I find him . . . 
Inten. If you have so intimate an acquain- 
tance with your brother's affairs, you will 
be tender of turning so far back : they 
will hardly bear looking into, so far 
back. 



/^O^ 



qQ. y^px'ico^vj^ 



ooxx jpxjLt^jsjs^zssy^ ^-^^IJ^& 




Mon. Ay, ay, ugh, ugh, — nothing but 
disappointments here below ! I remark 
a considerable payment made to yourself 
on this Third of December. Talk of 
disappointments ! There was a young 
fellow here, Jules, a foreign sculptor I 
did my utmost to advance, that the 
Church might be a gainer by us both : he 
was going on hopefully enough, and of 
a sudden he notifies to me some marvel- 
lous change that has happened in his 
notions of Art. Here 's his letter, — " He 
never had a clearly conceived Ideal 
within his brain till to-day. Yet since 
his hand could manage a chisel, he has 
practised expressing other men's Ideals; 
and, in the very perfection he has at- 
tained to, he foresees an ultimate fail- 
ure : his unconscious hand will pursue 
its prescribed course of old years, and 
will reproduce with a fatal expertness the 
ancient types, let the novel one appear 
never so palpably to his spirit. There is 
but one method of escape : confiding the 




virgin type to as chaste a hand, he will 
turn painter instead of sculptor, and paint, 
not carve, its characteristics," — strike 
out, I dare say, a school like Correggio : 
how think you, Ugo ? 
Inten. Is Correggio a painter? 
Mon. Foolish Jules ! and yet, after all, 
why foolish ? He may — probably will, 
fail egregiously; but if there should 
arise a new painter, will it not be in 
some such way, by a poet now, or a 
musician, (spirits who have conceived 
and perfected an Ideal through some 
other channel) transferring it to this, and 
escaping our conventional roads by pure 
ignorance of them ; eh, Ugo ? If you 
have no appetite, talk at least, Ugo! 
Inten. Sir, I can submit no longer to this 
course of yours. First, you select the 
group of which I formed one, — next you 
thin it gradually, — always retaining me 
with your smile, — and so do you proceed 
till you have fairly got me alone with 



Tm 



M^ 



you between four stone walls. And now 
then ? Let this farce, this chatter end 
now : what is it you want with me ? 
Mon. Ugo ! 

Inten. From the instant you arrived, I 
felt your smile on me as you questioned 
me about this and the other article in 
those papers — why your brother should 
have given me this villa, that podere, — 
and your nod at the end meant, — what ? 
Mon. Possibly that I wished for no loud 
talk here. If once you set me coughing, 
Ugo! — 

Inten. I have your brother's hand and 
seal to all I possess : now ask me what 
for ! What service I did him — ask me ! 
Mon. I would better not : I should rip up 
old disgraces, let out my poor brother's 
weaknesses. By the way, Maffeo of 
Forli, (which, I forgot to observe, is your 
true name,) was the interdict ever taken 
off you for robbing that church at Cesena ? 



J^de^ 



/nten. No, nor needs be : for when I 
murdered your brother's friend, Pas- 
quale, for him . . . 

Mon. Ah, he employed you in that busi- 
ness, did he ? "Well, I must let you keep, 
as you say, this villa and that podere, for 
fear the world should find out my rela- 
tions were of so indifferent a stamp ? 
Maffeo, my family is the oldest in 
Messina, and century after century have 
my progenitors gone on polluting them- 
selves with every wickedness under 
heaven: my own father . . . rest his 
soul ! — I have, I know, a chapel to 
support that it may rest : my dear two 
dead brothers were, — what you know 
tolerably well ; I, the youngest, might 
have rivalled them in vice, if not in 
wealth : but from my boyhood I came 
out from among them, and so am not 
partaker of their plagues. My glory 
springs from another source ; or if from 
this, by contrast only, — for I, the bishop, 
am the brother of your employers, Ugo. 



Y£AlCSl 




I hope to repair some of their wrong, 
however ; so far as my brother's ill- 
gotten treasure reverts to me, I can stop 
the consequences of his crime : and not 
one soldo shall esca.pe me. Maffeo, the 
sword we quiet men spurn away, you 
shrewd knaves pick up and commit mur- 
ders with ; what opportunities the virtu- 
ous forego, the villanous seize. Because, 
to pleasure myself apart from other con- 
siderations, my food would be millet-cake, 
my dress sackcloth, and my couch straw, 
— am I therefore to let you, the off- 
scouring of the earth, seduce the poor 
and ignorant by appropriating a pomp 
these will be sure to think lessens the 
abominations so unaccountably and ex- 
clusively associated with it ? Must I let 
villas and poderi go to you, a murderer 
and thief, that you may beget by means 
of them other murderers and thieves ? 
No — if my cough would but allow me to 
speak ! 



Inten. What am I to expect? You are 
going to punish me ? 
Mon. — Must punish you, Maffeo. I 
cannot afford to cast away a chance. I 
have whole centuries of sin to redeem, 
and only a month or two of life to do it 
in. How should I dare to say . . . 
Inten. *' Forgive us our trespasses " ? 
Mon. My friend, it is because I avow 
myself a very worm, sinful beyond mea- 
sure, that I reject a line of conduct you 
would applaud perhaps. Shall I proceed, 
as it were, a-pardoning ? — I ? — who have 
no symptom of reason to assume that 
aught less than my strenuousest efforts 
will keep myself out of mortal sin, much 
less keep others out. No : I do trespass, 
but will not double that by allowing you 
to trespass. 

Inten. And suppose the villas are not 
your brother's to give, nor yours to take ? 
Oh, you are hasty enough just now! 



UNC; 




II 




Mon. I, 2 — N° 3! — ay, can you read 
the substance of a letter, N° 3, I have 
received from Rome ? It is precisely on 
I the ground there mentioned, of the sus- 
picion I have that a certain child of my 
late elder brother, who would have suc- 
ceeded to his estates, was murdered in 
infancy by you, Maffeo, at the instiga- 
tion of my late younger brother — that 
the Pontiff enjoins on me not merely 
the bringing that Maffeo to condign pun- 
ishment, but the taking all pains, as 
guardian of the infant's heritage for the 
Church, to recover it parcel by parcel, 
howsoever, whensoever, and whereso- 
ever. While you are now gnawing those 
fingers, the police are engaged in sealing 
up your papers, Maffeo, and the mere 
raising my voice brings my people from 
the next room to dispose of yourself. But 
I want you to confess quietly, and save 
me raising my voice. "Why, man, do I 
not know the old story ? The heir 
between the succeeding heir, and this 





heir's ruffianly instrument, and their 
complot's effect, and the life of fear and 
bribes and ominous smiling silence ? 
Did you throttle or stab my brother's 
infant ? Come now ! 

/nten. So old a story, and tell it no 
better? When did such an instrument 
ever produce such an effect ? Either 
the child smiles in his face ; or, most 
likely, he is not fool enough to put him- 
self in the employer's power so thor- 
oughly : the child is always ready 
to produce — as you say — howsoever, 
wheresoever, and whensoever. 
Mon. Liar ! 

/nten. Strike me ? Ah, so might a father 
chastise ! I shall sleep soundly to-night 
at least, though the gallows await me 
to-morrow ; for what a life did I lead ! 
Carlo of Cesena reminds me of his con- 
nivance, every time I pay his annuity; 
which happens commonly thrice a year. 
If I remonstrate, he will confess all to 
the good bishop — you ! 



y\)^ 




Mon. I see through the trick, caitiff ! I 
would you spoke truth for once. All 
shall be sifted, however — seven times 
sifted. 

Inten. And how my absurd riches en- 
cumbered me ! I dared not lay claim to 
above half my possessions. Let me but 
once unbosom myself, glorify Heaven, 
and die ! 

Sir, you are no brutal dastardly idiot like 
your brother I frightened to death : let us 
understand one another. Sir, I will make 
away with her for you — the girl— here 
close at hand ; not the stupid obvious 
kind of killing ; do not speak — know 
nothing of her nor of me ! I see her 
every day — saw her this morning: of 
course there is to be no killing; but at 
Rome the courtesans perish off every 
three years, and I can entice her thither 
— have indeed begun operations already. 
There 's a certain lusty blue-eyed fiorid- 
complexioned English knave, I and the 
Police employ occasionally. You as- 
sent, I perceive — no, that 's not it — 



fe: 




Mon. [springing up.] My people — one and 
all — all — within there ! Gag this villain 
— tie him hand and foot ! He dares . . . 
I know not half he dares — but remove 
him — quick ! Miserere mei, Domine ! 
Quick, I say ! 



f 







PIPPA'S Chamber again. She enters it. 

The bee with his comb, 

The mouse at her dray, 

The grub in his tomb, 

While winter away ; 

But the fire-fly and hedge-shrew and lob- 
worm, I pray, 

How fare they ? 

Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my 
Zanze ! 

" Feast upon lampreys, quaff Bre- 
ganze " — 

The summer of life so easy to spend. 

And care for to-morrow so soon put 
away! 

But winter hastens at summer's end. 

And fire-fly, hedge-shrew, lob-worm, 
pray, 

How fare they ? 



No bidding me then to . . . what did 

Zanze say ? 
" Pare your nails pearlwise, get your 

small feet shoes 
More like" . . . (what said she?) — "and 

less like canoes ! " 
How pert that girl was! — would I be 

those pert 
Impudent staring women ! It had done 

me, 
However, surely no such mighty hurt 
To learn his name who passed that jest 

upon me : 
No foreigner, that I can recollect. 
Came, as she says, a month since, to 

inspect 
Our silk-mills — none with blue eyes and 

thick rings 
Of raw-silk-colored hair, at all events. 
Well, if old Luca keep his good intents, 
We shall do better, see what next year 

brings I 
I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear 
More destitute than you perhaps next 

year ! 



\'^^ 



Bluph . . . something! I had caught 

the uncouth name 
But for Monsignor's people's sudden 

clatter 
Above us — bound to spoil such idle 

chatter 
As ours : it were indeed a serious matter 
If silly talk like ours should put to 

shame 
The pious man, the man devoid of 

blame, 
The ... ah but — ah but, all the same. 
No mere mortal has a right 
To carry that exalted air; 
Best people are not angels quite : 
While — not the worst of people's doings 

scare 
The devil ; so there 's that proud look to 

spare ! 

Which is mere counsel to myself, 

mind ! for 
I have just been the holy Monsignor : 
And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother. 







And you too, Luigi ! — how that Luigi 

started 
Out of the turret — doubtlessly departed 
On some good errand or another, 
For he passed just now in a traveller's 

trim, 
And the sullen company that prowled 
About his path, I noticed, scowled 
As if they had lost a prey in him. 
And I was Jules the sculptor's bride, 
And I was Ottima beside. 
And now what am I ? — tired of fooling. 
Day for folly, night for schooling ! 
New year's day is over and spent, 
111 or well, I must be content. 

Even my lily 's asleep, I vow : 
VJsike up — here 's a friend I 've plucked 

you ! 




II 




Call this flower a heart's-ease now ! 
Something rare, let me instruct you, 
' Is this, with petals triply swollen, 
Thrice times spotted, thrice the pollen ; 
While the leaves and parts that witness 
Old proportions and their fitness, 
Here remain unchanged, unmoved now; 
Call this pampered thing improved now ! 
Suppose there 's a king of the flowers 
And a girl-show held in his bowers — 
" Look ye, buds, this growth of ours," 
Says he, " Zanze from the Brenta, 
I have made her gorge polenta 
Till both cheeks are near as bouncing 
As her . . . name there 's no pronounc- 
ing 





See this heightened color too, 
For she swilled Breganze wine 
Till her nose turned deep carmine ; 
'T was but white when wild she grew. 
And only by this Zanze's eyes 
Of which we could not change the size, 
The magnitude of all achieved 
Otherwise, may be perceived." 



Oh what a drear dark close to my poor 

day! 
How could that red sun drop in that black 

cloud ? 
Ah Pippa, morning's rule is moved away, ^^^l'i\ 
Dispensed with, never more to be 

allowed ! 
Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's. 
Oh lark, be day's apostle 







To mavis, merle and throstle, 

Bid them their betters jostle 

From day and its delights ! 

But at night, brother howlet, over the 

woods, 
Toll the world to thy chantry ; 
Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods 
Full complines with gallantry : 
Then, owls and bats, 
Cowls and twats, 

Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods. 
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry ! 

[After she has begun to undress herself. 

Now, one thing I should like to really 

know : 
How near I ever might approach all these 
I only fancied being, this long day : 





[Sitting on the bedside. 

And border Ottima's cloak's hem. 

Ah me, and my important part with them, 

This morning's hymn half promised 

when I rose ! 
True in some sense or other, I suppose. 
[As she lies down. 

God bless me ! I can pray no more 

to-night. 
No doubt, some way or other, hymns 

say right. 

All service ranks the same with God — 
With God, whose puppets, best and worst, 
Are Ave ; there is no last nor first. 

[She sleeps. 





WIS) 


















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